Pinochet ran his country into the ground by listening to free-marketeers

One of the great right-wing Big Lies (there are many) is "Chile's economic miracle", in which neoliberal and "free-market" reforms were enacted under the military dictator Augusto Pinochet and are said to have ushered in a new era of capitalism and prosperity which the US would do well to follow today. They say this to justify the fact that Pinochet's government was one based on sheer force, brutality and murder, not consent...but I'm not here to talk about his crimes.

Anyways, Chile had a major banking crisis in 1982 brought on by years of following Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and the Chicago Boys' neoliberal economic policies. What did Pinochet do? He kicked out the Chicago Boys and brought in new people. He nationalized multiple banks. The succeeding governments were center-left ones which cut poverty by increasing social spending 210%, increasing the minimum wage, and across-the-board tax increases. So whenever a rightie tells you about how much of a "success story" Chile under Pinochet was, be sure to point out to them that they are referencing economic policies from the 1970s which were largely abandoned because they were terrible and didn't work.

One of the great right-wing Big Lies (there are many) is "Chile's economic miracle", in which neoliberal and "free-market" reforms were enacted under the military dictator Augusto Pinochet and are said to have ushered in a new era of capitalism and prosperity which the US would do well to follow today. They say this to justify the fact that Pinochet's government was one based on sheer force, brutality and murder, not consent...but I'm not here to talk about his crimes.

Anyways, Chile had a major banking crisis in 1982 brought on by years of following Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and the Chicago Boys' neoliberal economic policies. What did Pinochet do? He kicked out the Chicago Boys and brought in new people. He nationalized multiple banks. The succeeding governments were center-left ones which cut poverty by increasing social spending 210%, increasing the minimum wage, and across-the-board tax increases. So whenever a rightie tells you about how much of a "success story" Chile under Pinochet was, be sure to point out to them that they are referencing economic policies from the 1970s which were largely abandoned because they were terrible and didn't work.

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I have no interest in results. I'm concerned with just conduct. Hence why I have little time for Friedman - his means are quite agreeable, but our ends are quite different. He desires liberty as a means to prosperity, and is therefore only a step away from totalitarianism. His proposal of a basic income is a decent example.

Don't get me wrong, I like the guy - he opened me up and pushed me from left to right, he's a great communicator - but I don't feel much of an affinity with his position. I'm not concerned with prosperity, I couldn't care less about the direction society and the economy takes - I am concerned above all with my own conduct.

Is Chile coming out from the shadow of Pinochet?Is Pinochet's shadow over Chile beginning to recede?12 Sept.`18 - It's been 45 years since Pinochet took power. While some view the leader positively, others search for the disappeared.

The Memory and Human Rights Museum in Santiago, Chile's capital, was an initiative of former president and newly-appointed UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet - who herself was a victim of torture under Augusto Pinochet's rule. It opened in 2010 and became part of an ongoing debate over the legacy of Chile's former leader. Mauricio Rojas, the newly appointed culture minister, was forced to resign after four days in office over comments he had made about the museum in a 2015 book. He had accused the institution of manipulating history and attempting to shock visitors to "prevent them from reasoning".

Santiago's Memory and Human Rights Museum receives some 160,000 visitors each year, many of whom come from Chile, according to the museum's director​

The museum features instruments of torture and victim's testimonies alongside historical documents and drawings by children whose parents were arrested under Pinochet's rule. "It's a shameless and inaccurate use of a national tragedy that touched so many [Chileans] directly," he said.
Rojas - who fled Chile following the US-backed coup d'etat that brought Pinochet to power - later said the comments did not reflect his current view and that he had not intended to diminish or justify the "systematic and grave" human rights violations that took place.

Portraits of some of the thousands who were murdered, tortured and disappeared​

On September 11, 1973, Pinochet seized power by overthrowing the democratically-elected Marxist President Salvador Allende, and went on to rule for the next 17 years. He stepped down in 1990, following a referendum on extending his term. Under his rule, the Latin American country flourished economically, but the opposition was repressed and thousands of people were executed, disappeared and tortured by state forces. While Pinochet is vilified as a ruthless dictator on the international stage, the view in his homeland has always been more nuanced, with some still viewing his rule as a positive force.

Supporters of Sebastian Pinera hold a bust of Pinochet aloft following the news of Pinera's election victory in December 2017​

As the country marks the 45th anniversary of the coup on Tuesday, is Pinochet's shadow, which has loomed large for decades, beginning to recede?
"There's a general awareness in Chile that during the dictatorship years, fundamental human rights were violated in a systematic and cruel manner," said Francisco Javier Estevez, the director of the Museum. "[Rojas' comments] generated a very large reaction. The political and cultural worlds said, 'No, we're going to defend this museum because it tells the truth and, if we want to contribute to a more just society, we are going to have to get together behind the principles of truth and justice so that [human rights abuses] never happen again'," he told Al Jazeera.